The Museum of Deinze and the region of the river Lys , within the context of its new concept SHOW-2, proudly presents Cosmogony, a joint exhibition of the sculptor Annabelle Hyvrier and the painter Xavier Noiret-Thomé, both of whom were born in France in 1971, live and work in Brussels. The exhibition’s theme and title is drawn from a stanza of A Season in Hell, Arthur Rimbaud’s 1873 seminal poem in prose: “I shall unveil all the mysteries: mysteries religious or natural, death, birth, future, past, cosmogony, nothingness… I am a master of phantasmagoria.

”Life – with its unexpected curves – runs like a thread through the work of Annabelle Hyvrier. Her sculpture often springs from vigorous struggle with colossal and carefully selected chunks of wood – struggle won in delicate balance between artist and medium. Annabelle Hyvrier possesses the rare talent of metamorphosing rough and monolithic chunks of wood into conceptually brilliant and dynamic sculptures, as well as of creating complex multi-sculpture, multi-media installations, such as Ghost, which will première in this exhibition. Her work is in museum and private collections.

Xavier Noiret-Thomé, best described as both impassioned by icons and rebellious iconoclast, boasts vast erudition of art history and curiosity in all genre of artistic expression. His work references the past without emulating it. On the contrary, Xavier Noiret-Thomé incessantly redefines, reinterprets, and researches art historical strengths and fragilities, simultaneously respectful and irreverent of artistic heritage. By sweeping away art historical boundaries, his work destabilises the viewer, and invites him to take an extended look. Xavier Noiret-Thomé was awarded the Prix Levis of the Young Belgian Art Prize in 2001, and in 2005, was a resident at the Villa Medicis, as laureate of the French Academy in Rome. His work is in museum and private collections.